Bring Love to Your Mess

by Christina Hubbard

I’ve been struggling with my mess. My physical, emotional, intellectual, and soulful mess. The visual of which is dog food in the garage, in my kitchen, new white fluffy kitchen towels stained with blueberries, candy wrappers in the dining room, tennis shoes peeking out from under the coffee table. All the stuff I told the kids to put away comes out in my tone of voice, my mannerisms. Kids are kids, yet I internalize and absorb the mess into myself.

Then I want to tidy it up. I’m not talking about the physical mess anymore. I’m talking about me. The parts of me that don’t make sense. I feel like I’m losing control in a way when I see these vexations, these annoyances, which cause my environment to reel out of place.

Order is good, but it often masks the inner turmoil, work going on in our heart. We can have perfectly dusted, straightened bookshelves but have a whole pile of scary stuff we shoved behind cabinet doors below. This stuff needs time and careful sorting to find if there’s still room for it.

A word I’m sitting with lately is SPACE.

This morning I walked by my son’s room strewn with clothes. I was going to shut the door and wal downstairs. Instead, I went and stood in the middle of yesterday’s pants, PJs, and half-read books. Right in the messy space. Looking out the window at squirrels playing in the oak tree, comforting words came on the radio, still playing.

God is there in my haunting fears, of being too much and too messy. Standing in the fray, I felt peace wrap me in close and warm.